Prologue:

After round one, there were 5 undefeated players, and two of us were Grymkin players.

Naturally, I ended up playing into the other Grymkin player. He had the Dreamer and the King of Nothing, both in Dark Menagerie.

Once again, I felt like the Heretic was the right call here, since Hollowmen see through Clouds, ignore Stealth on the Gremlin Swarms (and we were playing a Scenario in which they could get magical weapons thanks to Armory) and generally speaking the army is just tough to remove.

I picked the Heretic, my opponent picked the King. I chose the Shadow and Ruin Arcana again, and my opponent picked Fortune's Path and Sacrifice, in addition to the King of Nothings Trump Arcana Taste of Ash.

I did not ADR at all, and I won the roll off for first, happily taking it. I have to get up the table and set up on the zones first so that his cloud wall isn't as big of a deal.

The Heretic turn 1:

Guess what? Everything runs! Fury goes on a random unit of Dread Rots, fury is dropped, and the Heretic charges. I absolutely love how frontline this caster can play.

The King turn 1:

My opponent decides that he cannot reliably take both sides of the table on at once, and so he parks his Rattlers behind his objective on the left, with Gremlin Swarms screening them from Gorehound pulls and a couple of Crabbits behind.

He then puts Clouds down covering all of them after moving the King over.

Three of his heavies run up to screen the King, and his Cage Rager on the right moves up with the Dread Rots and a couple of Crabbits.

The Heretic turn 2:

A bit of my mark II no-premeasurement sense is tingling, and I think my opponent hasn't placed his heavies correctly to block Line of Sight from Longfellow to the King. Furthermore, we know Longfellow is in range by a couple of inches because my opponent checked that already.

I go ahead and measure seven from Longfellow straight forward to get the most favorable angle with the best range, and he has Line of Sight to and range to the King, who is sitting on nothing and has no shield guards.

My opponent and I agree that if this works, I win, but we will reset and he will move his heavies over to block Line of Sight properly so that the game can continue.

Longfellow moves up, shoots the King, three dice needing sevens, and hits. Dice off 4 on three dice, does about 8 damage.

Second shot, three dice to hit needing sevens hits. Dice off 4 on four dice does another 10 for the win.

The Green Proxy Base is where Longfellow is

Victory for the Heretic!

We reset here, and I take my turn like I would normally.

The Hollowmen all apparitioned backwards already on the left to get away from the Rattlers, and on the right, Armory gave one of them a magic rifle.

The Right Hollowmen CRA the far right Gremlin Swarm to death, kill a Dread Rot, and force tough on another.

On the left, they do two 2-man CRAs into the left Rattler, and one gets Shield Guarded. I am incredibly careful here to position my models in such a way that I do not let my opponent get a free Rattler rampage in. I even go so far as to shoot and kill one of my own infantry guys that I left too close to his right hand one. My Gorehound goes in, dealing about half damage to the already hurt Rattler and tying things up.

Everything else rotates right. I will be able to contest his zone forever, I'm never taking the middle zone until way late in the game, but my opponent can only contest my right zone for a short time before he starts having to give me valuable models like the heavies in order to keep me from just grinding out the Scenario. My Glimmer Imp stays central since I will probably need it but I don't know on which side yet. I put a Crabbit in the right zone in case he decides not to contest, put both Twilight Sisters in the circular zone in case he doesn't contest there, and pass the turn.

The Heretic puts a Wall of Fire down so that my opponent will have to start taking damage on his Rattlers if they come at my four baiting Hollowmen.

The King turn 2:

Things go a little off the rails here as my opponent has two Rattlers fail to kill the Gorehound in his zone.

On the right, his Cage Rager moves up and the King arcs a pair of Ashes to Ashes through it. I Ruin the first one, causing him to through out the second one which kills Longfellow (he cast it at his own model).

He ends his turn with a pair of Skin and Moans contesting the central zone and two Dread Rots in the right hand one.

The Heretic turn 3:

It's a simple matter to clear his Dread Rots on the right, and the Hollowmen clean up the other two.

On the left, my first Gorehound goes around the damaged Rattler and kills it.

The Heretic puts Fury on the other Gorehound and puts a Wall of Fire down because he has nothing else to do with his fury.

My second Gorehound goes in with Fury after the Hollowmen put some CRA shots into the second Rattler and misses all but one attack.

I score a point.

Score: 1 - 0Advantage Heretic

The King turn 3:

He commits some hefty resources to kill both Gorehounds. He also contests my zone with a Crabbit. He shifts his Beast Brick around to the left and puts up a cloud so I cannot really charge them, but I feel like the longer this game goes the better it gets for me.

At the end of the turn, he scores a point.

Score: 1 - 1Tie!

The Heretic turn 4:

Rinse and repeat time. Contest his zone, clear mine. This time I also start flooding around his half of the table with the two units of Dread Rots there, putting pressure on his Skin and Moans and back Cage Rager.

I kill off the damaged Crabbit with Hollowmen and score another point.

Score: 2 - 1Advantage Heretic

The King turn 4:

My opponent decides he has to commit, and the Skin and Moans that comes in kills four Dread Rots, gets Reckoning Triggered on him, and then everything of his moves up to the left.

His Gremlin Swarms clamp down the charge lanes on the Skin and Moans from the remaining Rots, and the third contests the right zone.

He scores again.

Score: 2 - 2Tie!

The Heretic turn 5:

The Rattler gets a magical attack from the objective.

The Witchwood goes first, beating on the Skin and Moans that has been Reckoned and using Sirens call to move one of the Gremlin Swarms away.

The Twilight Sisters go next and are able to kill the leftmost Gremlin Swarm.

Dread Rots with Fury and Reckoning kill off the Reckoned Skin and Moans, so Reckoning transfers to the Gremlin Swarm in the zone.

The Rattler boosts to hit and damage on it, killing it and transferring Reckoning to the Crabbit in the rubble on the right.

The Hollowmen go and blow that Crabbit up, Reckoning transfers to the Cage Rager in the back.

Dread Rots take that Cage Rager down to about 1/3 health with a few charges.

The Heretic charges the remaining Gremlin Swarm now that he can do that safely and kills it.

I score again after contesting with a Crabbit.

Score: 3 - 2Advantage Heretic

The King turn 5:

We engineer a janky set of events wherein my opponent is able to clear a path from his Skin and Moans to the Heretic, who is camping four.

The Skin and Moans gets Scything Touch and ghostly and charges in.

I trigger Shadow and put a Cage Rager down so that I have a transfer battery. My opponent gets through the run, the Heretic still alive, and his clock runs out.

Victory for the Heretic!

Post-Game Thoughts:

I did some pretty important things in this game. I target focused on his Rattlers extremely hard and took great pains to ensure that they could never, ever get to a clump of infantry.

I killed a flank and then collapsed into my opponents side of the table so that he could not get away and had to commit his models into unfavorable trades.

Even with two Ashes to Ashes a turn, my opponent just could not kill enough guys, and the constant Scenario pressure really made him have to commit his much more expensive models to the threat ranges of mine.